remember this degree of orchestrated diplomatic contempt.”
“Incredible,” sympathized Sir Archibald Bland. “Incredible and completely unsatisfactory. As well as being totally unacceptable. The cabinet decided this morning to summon the Russian ambassador in return, for an official protest Note. We’re also refusing their lawyers access to their arrested diplomats here, which technically breaches the agreed consular code. We’ll have eventually to concede, causing us further humiliation when we do, but we’ll string it out as long as we can in the hope of getting in to see our tourist group.”
“I don’t think they’ll blink first,” cautioned Palmer.
“Neither does the cabinet,” admitted Bland, the double-act confrontation clearly rehearsed. “So, tell us you’ve got the bloody man who’s caused all this.”
“We haven’t yet,” admitted Aubrey Smith. “And until he makes contact, which he’s got to do at some stage, we don’t know where to look. Which the Russians are clearly expecting us to do, to lead them to Muffin. My people are convinced there’s a higher than customary degree of surveillance on the embassy and everyone going in and out.”
“Are you getting the same indication?” Bland asked Monsford.
The MI6 Director shifted, more concerned at the potential danger to the Radtsic extraction than at not having heard, until that moment, about a heightened embassy observation. “Tighter than usual, certainly,” he lied. “What we surely need is something more embarrassing with which to confront the Russians?”
“The purpose of this meeting is to explore practicalities, not daydreams,” criticized Bland. “I don’t want us even to consider anything that might blow up in our faces to compound a disaster into a total catastrophe. I want that, the government wants that, completely understood by both of you. So, do you completely understand what I’ve just told you?”
“I most definitely understand,” replied Smith.
“I was trying to explore logic more than daydreams,” Monsford defensively tried to recover, disappointed at the brusque dismissal of what he’d hoped would prepare them for Radtsic.
“It’s inevitably going to dominate the House again today, as well as tomorrow morning’s headlines,” predicted Bland. “Are you both telling me there’s absolutely nothing to add from yesterday?”
“Absolutely nothing,” conceded Smith, his normally soft voice little more than a mumble. “You’ll know the minute I do that we’ve got Muffin under wraps. Which won’t provide any counterpublicity, will it?”
“If there is any news of Muffin it will obviously come from my colleague’s service,” said Monsford, determined to distance himself and MI6. Equally determined upon what would later be recognized as proactive thinking, he added: “And I’ll alert you at once to anything else that could be relevant.”
“And Palmer and Bland were a blink away from tears of gratitude at the hope of a balancing embarrassment for the Russians,” boasted Monsford, ending his account of the Foreign Office encounter.
“You didn’t take the hint about Radtsic any further than that?” asked Straughan. Once more he ignored the woman as Monsford activated the recording equipment, glad he’d postponed their intended conversation after the earlier morning session.
“Only the merest wisp of hope,” said Monsford, smiling: he’d omitted Bland’s edict against counterbalancing the Russian maneuvering. “They’ll recognize what I was talking about by this time tomorrow: that we weren’t just sitting around on our hands. Aubrey Smith was practically whimpering, like an abandoned dog.”
“Isn’t there a risk of our being criticized for keeping it to ourselves?” suggested Rebecca.
“Palmer and Bland are sitting on their hands as well, shit scared of anything else going wrong,” dismissed Monsford. “I wasn’t going to risk a last-minute abandonment.”
Working through Monsford’s mixed metaphor was like wading through mud, thought Rebecca. “You don’t sound very impressed by any of them?”
“Unlike Janus, they’re only looking in one direction: over their shoulders to protect their backs.” Monsford sneered, juggling his responses. “You made it clear to Jacobson he’s got to rein in Radtsic?”
Straughan nodded. “I didn’t just reinforce it to Jacobson. I personally spoke to Halliday. There can’t be the slightest misunderstanding.”
“How did Halliday take it?” asked Rebecca.
“He complained at being sidelined: not being treated as a senior operative.”
“Did he now!” mocked Monsford. “What did you tell him?”
“That being a senior officer he knew the golden espionage rule that operational security dictates that agents are only told what it’s individually essential for them to know for their part of an assignment.”
“Did he accept that?” questioned Rebecca.
“What he accepted was that he didn’t have an alternative,” qualified Straughan. “What he did say was that he should have been given more responsibility.”
“I definitely shouldn’t have left him in Moscow after the last clear-out,” said Monsford. “Bring him out the moment this is all over.”
“Which brings us to a connected situation,” seized Straughan. “Jacobson pointed out that he’ll obviously be identified by the FSB as Radtsic’s escape Control. There’s no way he can return to Moscow.”
Monsford shrugged, frowning. “What’s the relevance of that, right now?”
“Bringing Radtsic in is going to be a hell of a coup not just for the service but for Jacobson, personally. And give the government the recovery it needs. Jacobson is staking his claim early for a fitting recognition.”
Monsford sniggered, derisively. “He’s doing
“Putting himself forward to be station chief in Washington, D.C., or Paris. His preference is Paris.”
Monsford sniggered again. “If we weren’t as close as we are I’d consider abandoning the extraction, seriously concerned that Harry Jacobson had suffered a mental problem. I’d diagnose inflated grandeur. Harry Jacobson’s future is one of the furthest thoughts from my mind and will probably stay that way for a long time to come. If he mentions it again, tell him there’s absolutely no reason for him to take a French-language course or learn the words of the ‘Star Spangled Banner.’”
“I’ll let you tell him when he gets here,” said Straughan, sighing.
“When’s he handing over the passport and tickets to Radtsic?” Monsford pressed on, unaware of the other man’s contempt.
“Now,” replied Straughan, ready for the demand.
“We’ll reconvene this afternoon,” decided Monsford.
As they walked together from the Director’s office, Rebecca said: “It’s turning out to be a crowded day?”
“Productive, though,” agreed Straughan.
The deputy director waited until they were in the outside corridor before saying: “Shall we wait until after the final meeting?”
“Probably best,” Straughan agreed once more. “Could you see?”
“Yes,” said Rebecca. “We’re doing the right thing.”
“I hope so,” said the man.
“Trust me,” said Rebecca.
That was his problem, acknowledged Straughan. He didn’t trust her any more than he trusted Gerald Monsfod, in whom he had no trust whatsoever.
He’d been overconfident, Charlie Muffin admitted to himself. He’d swung from overcaution to overconfidence instilled by overanalyzing the overly suspicious to end up where he was now, overwhelmed by discrepancies. By far the worst had been his mistakenly imagining Natalia’s fear-prompted telephone calls connected to the provable FSB burglary and staged the Amsterdam deception to evade an imagined entrapment. And by so doing provided the Russians with the propaganda field day they were utilizing to their fullest advantage. But from what Halliday told him Charlie was sure he’d correctly judged that the rescue extraction for Natalia and Sasha had all along been a sacrificial diversion for something entirely separate. Would he have compromised, destroyed even, that separate operation as he’d now so badly endangered his chances of getting Natalia and Sasha out? It would be a fitting retribution if he had, inadvertent though it would have been.
But that wasn’t his major concentration. More immediate was covering his self-dug pitfalls safely. His hopes of doing that had soared after establishing contact with David Halliday and then so quickly afterward with Natalia.
